


Foghorn through Darkness

by starlight_firelight



Category: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson
Genre: Internalized Homophobia, Letters, M/M, this is very short and very pointless sorry about that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 13:30:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20136223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlight_firelight/pseuds/starlight_firelight
Summary: I thought of the sins I had coded and organised alphabetically on little shelves in the back of my mind. Hate, lust, fury, greed. My friend, standing in the cold just a millimetre too far away for me to reach, hold, take to bed. Slammed doors and burnt letters, unrequited hatred. I was a broken man, shattered in all the right places. It hurt to walk for thewrongof me.





	Foghorn through Darkness

I gazed at my work, at my chemicals and vials laid out upon the table. I did not know then what destruction they would reap, only intent to wipe myself clean of my sins, my thoughts, my hate, my desire.

I existed with a certain queerness, then, in that still moment. I looked and I thought and I drank in the sight of my doings. I drank in the possibilities, of death, of improvement. Either were fine by me. I had lived enough like this, whole amongst the wrongdoings and the machinations of my past. Whole amongst the feelings and the thoughts, attractions to things I must not be attracted to.

I no longer wished to be whole. Better would I be, halved and split from what I hated.

I reached my shaking hand out to take a particular vial, green in its wrongness. The liquid moved in languid swirls, uncaring and unthinking and unaware of what it soon would do to me.

I stopped to consider consequences already turned over and over in my mind in circles so careful not a single possibility could be unanalysed. Death, destruction. My existence as less than whole, as a fractured man but a man of good nonetheless.

I thought of the sins I had coded and organised alphabetically on little shelves in the back of my mind. Hate, lust, fury, greed. My friend, standing in the cold just a millimetre too far away for me to reach, hold, take to bed. Slammed doors and burnt letters, unrequited hatred. I was a broken man, shattered in all the right places. It hurt to walk for the _wrong_ of me.

I thought of my friend again. Always cold, always happy yet always dim. A candle so used it might have been dust if not for wick added on by his friends. He would be surprised to hear of me again, for wide was the divide I put between us. I did not trust myself, more sin and desire than man around him. I thought of his hair, all combed back and soft, of his eyes and his silly scarf to keep what little heat he had in. I thought of nights around a fire, long walks not lonely for his company.

I would lose all that to the liquid in my hand, burn it from me if this went well. Utterson would become no more than a friend to me, and I no longer would start at the brush of his skin against mine. Halved and happy and free of sin would I be then, pure in my brokenness. I would not fuss over my hair before he came for supper, hoping against sense that he would notice. I would not lean into him in my anguish, thirsty for the scent of him. I would not stare at him from across a room livened by his presence, hoping no one would notice how warm it was when he was near.

My sins were vast and my doings wrong, and I would give anything to rid myself of the breaks in my glass psyche. Already had I thought of Utterson, already had I thought of myself. Speculation and reminiscence wasted time, so I took my teaspoon from its place on my table and portioned out a bit of fine white powder into the vial I held. Its colour changed violently, in the space of seconds, and afraid to act yet tied to my chemicals, I lifted the vial to my lips and drank.

_Utterson,_

_If your hands have come into possession of these letters, I am gone. Do not mourn for me yet, dear friend, until you finish my sorry tale. It has only just begun as I write this, but I am assured that in the next few months it will only grow dimmer._

_The excuse for my strangeness starts a month or so ago, when I became transfixed on the idea that we as humans all have dark and light inside of us. I thought if I could separate one from the other, I could make a whole new race of man, a population of only good people. Intent to do so, I devoted myself to finding a chemical solution._

_I did this. I will not go over how, for the results are terrible and the findings poor. I worked in a quiet stupor, locked away from both the good and the bad of humanity. Upon the creation of my chemicals, I was dubious. For so long had I thought of it, of the results I might find. My hatred of myself was a burning one, one that I would go to no end to burn away. My loathing for my sins was, in truth, my source of motivation throughout my morose hours of failed work, though the science and the change that I might create still fuelled my excitement. But was it enough? Risk of death on this experiment was high, understand. Was my scientific motivation enough to justify the possible end of my life?_

_Intent and afraid, I commenced._

_I drank my chemicals and unlocked within me all of the wrongdoings of the world. I transformed and metamorphosed into the being I now call Hyde, hateful and spite-filled._

_My transformation was not a peaceful one, painful and shattering and unhappy. You do not wish to hear of that though, I should think, so I will instead dwell upon the aftermath._

_Violence leaves silence in its wake. Understand, Utterson, as you read this, that this was a failed violence, a wrongdoing to add to all the others. Understand my position and feelings and sins have not altered, and though I am dead or gone and succumbed as you read this, understand that I am happier for it._

_I knew I had failed the moment I awoke from my pained transformation, assured in a doubling of all things wrong inside me. I failed spectacularly, Utterson, in the creation of Mr. Hyde. He was meant to be the best of me, a paragon in which I could seek solace from my sins. Rather was he a prison of malcontent, desire, hatred. My actions as him were freeing as they were enslaving, though._

_As Hyde I was untraced in my violence and my lust, in his younger smaller form I was free. Rather than venture into the world when I first became Hyde, I noticed my slight stature and hands swallowed in my shirt. Odd would it be for another man to walk out of my lab, and people speak in half-truths when they think they speak all lies._

_I found upon the second drinking of my elixir that I had failed doubly. I had thought at first that I might merely have separated out my virtues from my detestable sins, that upon my second drinking I might become who I had intended to be. This was not so. Instead, I awoke from my transformation as Henry Jekyll, nothing worse and nothing better._

_I have failed to stop, Utterson, and I am sorry that I tell you now but I do not have the time to go back and erase my confessions. I am a failure of a man, a bastard in my own right. I still crave the sight of you, the sound of you, the smell of you--things i wish to have erased. I think Hyde does, too, but that is buried beneath his hatred and his freedom, his unrestricted and unharnessed urges to murder and to burn and to loathe. I still drink my potion at night and release upon the streets of humanity his hatred and horror and unkempt violence._

_I shall hide this letter now, and I shall hope to write more. If you have received these anecdotes and I am gone, keep on with your readings. Do not curl away with disgust at the man who you held as a friend, please. Read on, for I fear my future will be more wrong than my past, for I fear that I shall be gone within the year and this will be your only memory of me._

_I am sorry to taint it,_  
_Your friend, Henry Jekyll._

**Author's Note:**

> This is the writing equivalent of 'bad', so sorry about that. If you like mythology or gothic fiction, you can check out my Tumblr [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/starlightaswellasfirelight)


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